Godmen

No viagra, porn – advisory on Haj Pilgrimage and the hue and cry about it – I say come on, good men! In our country even Godmen are trying hard to give these up i.e. a certain bapu lodged in a jail will tell (as will many others). Moving on…

Night internet back at IIT-B – I enjoyed reading this one. You see, IITans had been deprived of the internet during the Dracula hours for a decade before getting it back recently! The reason being to ward off demon-like activities such as “gaming and non-academic activities at night”. WHy? because it led to low attendance in morning lectures and falling grades. For one, I say, I look with trepidation at anything that looks like these 7 letters put in this particular sequence: L.E.C.T.U.R.E. I am no gaming buff and my season ended with Super Mario and Battle City but if I had to choose between the two, gaming wins, yes. But that was when I was not eligible to watch A-certificate movies. Now, it’s different. I am an adult. I can help the country decide who will rule it. I should be able to decided whether I want to indulge in academic or non-academic activities, night or day. Although, IIT-B apparently takes its alma mater role too seriously – Beta chintu, sweater pehno! I can tell you this IIT-B, you can’t stop somebody who wants to study. You can’t stop somebody who doesn’t. Ask a certain physically challenged lady who just topped the civil services examination. AM sure you don’t know her name.
Well, at least, the wifi-hotspot technology understood what IIT-B did not. Enjoy the non-academic activities, guys, as much as you do academic ones!

Kudos to Flavia Agnes for her part in the sensitisation programme held recently for police personnel in Mumbai. This follows that sticky incident where the khakis rounded up couples holed up in the city hotels – many of them adult teens – and humiliated them, fined them, and worst of all, called up their parents to tell them how badly their kids were behaving ! I’d hate the last part, particularly! Well, so the reputed and well-respected advocate apparently had this to say – when a husband beats his wife in public we think it is ‘personal’ but if he kisses his wife in public it is considered ashleel and as being against Indian culture. Well, fair point well made, however, two things I noticed – 1) the discourse is still hung on husband and wife – the picture frame of matrimony 2) perhaps the correlation with Indian culture is the most significant point here: wives need to be disciplined, so hit them and humiliate them. That’s normal. Kissing them? that’s shocking!!! why would you kiss your wife!!! Indian culture is still wondering.

That leads me – naturally – to Mulayam Singh Yadav. The stalwart protector of men who need no protection. He made a case for 3 non-rapists out of four alleged rapists in general, because, he explains with the razor-edge certainty of a scientist, that rape of one woman by four men was not practical. I don’t know if he knows about the Delhi Gang rape. I don’t know if he knows about Mukhtaran Mai. But, we know what he does know – which is that rape of a woman by four men is not practical. I want to know how he knows this.